Is online press coverage the best form of SEO?

Is online press coverage the best form of SEO?:

Also, although I only spent 20 mins on the phone to Danny, I have also built a relationship with him over 20 years or so – if I was being purist, perhaps I should factor in the investment made in that in order to arrive at the I of my ROI equation.

A throwaway line but actually, to some extent yes. The time spent working with partners like journalists, even if value doesn’t vest immediately, is fundamental to how this coverage came around. And I’m sure there were previous articles that came from it too.

The ROI track is easily complicated by this but it’s a perfect demo of the qualitative value of PR that must be measured alongside your KPIs — and the easiest for clients to completely underestimate.

Can they be looked at as failure as long as there has been progress in the relationship? Doesn’t that misunderstand the core of what makes PR work?